Alien mask, p.19
Alien Mask, page 19
Gahn Errok’s territory, the territory of my homeland, was found in the highest peaks of this region.
Since we’d been travelling on foot with injuries, we’d travelled through valleys and avoided scaling rock as much as possible.
But there was no other way to reach Gahn Errok and the tribe than to climb, now.
The largest, highest mountain in this dark and pointed group stood before me. I couldn’t see it from here, but I knew by heart the large, open cave partway up the incline that served as the Gahn’s hall.
The easiest way to access the hall was by flying up to it. On the back of a braxilk, the ascent would take mere moments. Obviously, I could not do that now.
There was one other way to get up there, meant for the injured or those outside with no braxilk, but it was not open to me as an exile. At the base of the mountain was a small opening, no larger than my fist. If a person shouted into that opening loudly enough, the echo would travel up a snaking tunnel of stone into the Gahn’s hall. Someone would then fly down on a braxilk to assist whoever was at the bottom. If I tried such a thing, they’d take one look at me with my mask and would turn right back around. It was possible they’d take enough pity on Breena to send down a healer for her. But I couldn’t be sure.
I decided to try it anyway.
I crouched at the hole, calling into its tiny opening of darkness.
“Send a healer down for my injured mount!” I shouted, my words ringing up the tunnel. I wouldn’t need to announce who was speaking. The brother of the Gahn had a voice any and all would instantly recognize. “And prepare the Gahn for my arrival. I want him ready to face me the moment my claws reach the floor of the hall.”
I withdrew and gave Breena a quick but tender stroke along the feathers of her neck, feathers now terribly stained with my blood.
“You stay here. A healer will come for you soon.”
Even if no one answered the call of the Gahn’s exiled brother, once I was up there, I could convince a healer to tend to her. It might have been easy enough to ignore the echoing ghost of my voice in the tunnel.
It would prove far more difficult to ignore me in person.
They’ll have to fling me off the cliff before I back down, I thought as I started to climb, my shoulder screaming, my head swimming from blood loss. Getting flung off the cliff was a distinct possibility, in all honesty. My rebellion with the Vrika had outraged my brother to no end. And now I was coming back, still without having obeyed his law, demanding help to retrieve a mate that the Vrika had not chosen for me.
This is not going to go well.
But despite the potential flinging that awaited me, I kept climbing. Every time I thought I’d fall, I thought I’d never make it, I remembered Priya’s scream as they’d taken her.
She needed me.
And who was I, if not mighty Lerokan, Lerokan the hero, just as I’d told her?
I’d failed her in the battle.
I would not fail her now.
And so, with almost no strength left in my body except the squeeze of a little brown fist around my heart, I pulled myself up over the edge and into my brother’s hall.
My brother’s voice greeted me as I rose to a standing position once I’d hoisted myself up from the edge.
“Greetings, brother.”
I followed the sound of his voice with my eyes, finding him in the centre of the hall. The hall was a massive natural cave, its entire front wall open to the air. A cavernous dome of glittering blue rock, it felt incredibly empty. Usually, there were more people in the hall at any given time, but right now it was just my brother and his right-hand man, Zakkar, who stood a few paces behind him. A fire at the far end of the hall crackled, sending sparks and flickering light through the high-ceilinged space and across my brother’s features. The sun had set while I’d climbed, and now the fire was the only source of light, glancing off of every stony wall and every blade worn by the two men before me.
“My mount needs a healer. Send one to her,” I said tersely, needing to get that out of the way first before I launched into the larger demand: the demand that my brother rally an army to retrieve my mate from Gahn Thaleo.
“Not even a raised tail and already you make requests of me?” Errok’s gaze snagged on my poorly bandaged shoulder and the streaks of black blood painting my side. “I see the world out there has made a mess of you, Little Lerokan.”
Little Lerokan. Piercing peaks, I hated that name. Probably because, in a way, it was true. I was not small compared to most. But most were small compared to my brother. In many ways, the two of us were alike. Similar facial structure, the same moonbeam-coloured sight stars. The same long hair worn the same way – loose. But Errok was broader of jaw and shoulder and thigh. Taller, too. Between the size difference and the fact he was older than me, he’d been the Gahn over me my entire life. Even before he officially received the title.
“You want a raised tail? Fine.” I snapped my tail up in front of my eyes then let it fall.
Errok watched the gesture, then strolled towards me as if there were nothing pressing happening between us at all.
When he stopped before me, my patience snapped.
“Did you hear me? Breena’s injured! She-”
“Lerokan,” Errok interrupted, sight stars sharp upon me. “If you think I’ll let Breena suffer for your poor choices, you are even more foolish than I’d thought. As soon as I heard your call through the tunnel, I sent a warrior to fetch a healer from the roosting cave for her.”
Oh.
“Thank you,” I ground out. As much as I hated relying on my brother for anything, when it came to Breena and Priya, it was worth it. The words were ash on my tongues but the gratitude was real.
“I presume that is why you came back here? Help for Breena?”
“No. Not entirely.” I’d been so fiercely focused on getting back here, every bit of strength and mental energy devoted to the journey, that I had not considered just how I would explain myself.
As the words poured out of me – words about desert men and a tiny strange female whom I now somehow, some way, had grown to love; words about Gahn Thaleo striking out into neutral territory and taking her – it became clear I really should have planned this better.
“You don’t believe me,” I said slowly when I’d finished telling my tale. I knew I’d encounter resistance. I knew I’d have to beg him for help. But I hadn’t anticipated that he would not believe me about Priya at all.
“I grow concerned that the blood loss has affected your mind,” Errok said. “It is obvious from your wound that you did have a run-in with Gahn Thaleo’s men. But all this about a mate from beyond the stars... Do you take me for a fool?”
“My mind is fine,” I hissed, though by now my mind felt anything but. If he didn’t agree to help me, if he didn’t rally his men to get Priya back, I really would go mad with rage. “Maybe I should gut you here and now, take the title of Gahn, and command the army into action myself,” I said, my voice so low and threatening it made my throat ache.
Errok’s sight stars pulsed, and his brows rose slightly. But my words struck no terror into him, despite the way Zakkar nocked an arrow to his bow and aimed it straight at me.
“You’d have to be truly mad to try to take a Gahn’s title by killing him. But fine. You wish to challenge me, brother? To kill me? Go ahead,” Errok said with a smirk. He raised his arms out to the side, muscles flexing, his hide shining in the firelight. “I will even let you land the first blow. Based on how weak you look, I doubt you’d even draw blood.”
“You know not the kind of strength that drives me now,” I growled.
Something shifted in Errok’s gaze. I knew how to read my brother well. What I saw was not fear.
But he was taking me more seriously than before.
He lowered his arms, looking at me appraisingly.
“Even if I did believe you,” he said, “and even if I did want to help you rescue this mystery female who sounds like a myth you made up, you are exiled. Our law demands exile in entirety. I will heal Breena. But until you submit to our laws, I cannot give tribal resources to this mad mission.”
Zakkar gave a warning growl, his bow twanging with tension as he drew his arm further back, ready to shoot me down. He’d seen me start reaching for my blade. Seen me grow desperate and violent and feral.
But all three of us froze when sudden, bursting light flooded the hall.
Zakkar and Errok stared beyond me, awe plain on both their faces. Zakkar raised his tail, and so did my brother, which shocked me greatly.
I turned, already knowing what I’d find there.
The Vrika beat its great wings outside the hall, rippling back and forth in the air.
“Here is your chance, Lerokan,” Errok spat, jealousy evident in his bitter tone. “Your chance to rejoin the tribe and gain access to the resources you seek.”
“You ask me to abandon Priya with my heart in order to retrieve her with my body,” I said stonily. Once I went with the Vrika, my feelings for Priya would be overtaken by the force of the mate bond erupting through my body. It seemed impossible that I could feel more for anyone than what I’d grown to feel for Priya. But the Vrika would use its great power to fuse me to the destiny it chose.
Not the one I’d chosen.
I can still choose her. I am strong. I can use that strength to reject the mate bond.
“You have to give me this, Lerokan,” Errok said from beside me, interrupting my thoughts. “You have to give me something. You cannot expect me to put our men in danger for something as far-fetched as what you’ve told me, some fever dream of your injury. But give me this – submit to the Vrika, end your exile – and I’ll do it.”
His words were the smash of a boulder upon my head.
But even in that devastation, I heard myself respond as if from somewhere far away.
“I will do it.”
Errok sent Zakkar to fetch me a healthy braxilk. Not long afterwards, he flew up to the hall from the outside and led a male braxilk towards me. I mounted the beast, noting the differences between this braxilk and Breena. It felt all wrong.
Everything about this felt wrong.
But if this was the only way to save Priya, I would do it.
I’d do anything.
I didn’t say anything else to my brother as I took flight.
But oddly, the Vrika did not move.
“You have summoned me so many times. Now that I am going with you, you will not budge?” I roared. I directed the braxilk into a holding pattern while the Vrika stared at me.
Then it turned its head, its large glowing eyes focusing on my brother.
A spasm went through Errok’s broad frame.
“Me?” he asked, the question a mere whisper.
The Vrika did not answer with words, but its gaze gave a clear answer:
It had come for Errok. Not for me.
“My mount!” Errok bellowed. Zakkar disappeared once more. He returned swiftly with Errok’s braxilk, a male named Togo. Zakkar barely had time to dismount before Errok had leaped up onto Togo’s back.
His commands into flight were quick and desperate.
“Can this not wait, brother?” I cried. “Time is of the essence! I cannot leave Priya with Gahn Thaleo a moment longer than necessary! I can tell you from experience that if you ignore the Vrika’s call, it will come back for you again another time.”
Errok banked his mount to glare at me.
“Selfish Lerokan,” he spat. “You’ve thrown your own good fortune into the shadows of the valley too many times, and now you ask me to forgo mine? I will not do it. Not for an exile who weaves non-sensical tales about even more non-sensical females.” With that, he faced back towards the Vrika.
But still, the sacred being did not move.
Except for the swing of its head back to me.
“It summons you both.”
Zakkar’s steady voice drifted to us from where he stood at the edge of the hall.
Will this cursed moment never end?
“Fine! Fine, let us both go, then! Let us go and be done with this so we can make our plans for Priya!” I shouted harshly.
Finally, the Vrika moved. Errok dove to follow it.
And so did I.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lerokan
We pushed our braxilk to the limit following the Vrika, Errok out of a long-held desire to get a mate, and me out of the desire to be done with this so I could end my exile, beg for tribal resources, and retrieve Priya.
The Vrika’s nest was at the top of the tallest peak in the centre of the neutral territory of the mountains. The braxilk brought us most of the way, but Errok and I both knew from the tales mated men had told us all our lives that the final stretch of the journey was a treacherous climb.
We directed our braxilk to the last ledge where they could land and let us off before we had to climb the rest of the way up the narrow spire of stone. At the top, the Vrika settled, staring down at us.
More climbing, I thought sourly, my shoulder throbbing. At this point why don’t you just take a sword and shove it up my –
“Come on!” Errok called, already scaling the stone. The wind whipped his hair and the fabric of his cock cloth as he ascended. Gritting my fangs and internally apologizing to my shoulder, I followed him.
The climb was brutal. Far more difficult than the climb up to Gahn Errok’s hall. Although, blessedly, this one was shorter. The Vrika rested not far above of us, curled into a tight bundle at the top of the peak.
“We’re nearly there,” Errok said. A single-minded determination hardened his features. His sight stars strained upwards towards the Vrika as his muscles propelled him.
I didn’t want to be nearly there. I didn’t want whatever the Vrika had in store for me.
Perhaps my body listened a little too closely to my mind.
Because I slipped.
It was the tiniest falter, and normally, at full strength, I would not have fallen.
But I did fall.
I jerked to a stop, then swung forward, colliding heavily with the stone. Beside my head, the claws of Errok’s feet dug desperately into the cliff-face as he struggled to hold both my weight and his own.
He’d grabbed me. Reached for me as I’d fallen and snagged his claws under the weapons straps across my back.
I scrabbled against the rock, finding my footing once more, my hands settling into cracks for purchase. Breathing heavily, we stared at each other for a moment before he spoke.
“It is not your fate to die that way, Little Lerokan.” For once, the nickname did not have its usual snap of condescension.
But of course, he was Errok, and the condescension returned soon after.
“The wind and the rock have no right to kill you. If anyone has earned that pleasure, it is me.”
“Cloud-brained fool of a Gahn,” I muttered. But still, despite both his words and mine, the tension between us had eased somewhat. Begrudgingly, I yet again felt gratitude for my insufferable older brother. First, for helping Breena. And now, for saving me.
And in saving me, by extension, saving Priya. Because obviously, I would not be able to help her if I were splattered across twenty paces of stone at the bottom of the valley.
The last stretch of the climb went quickly. Soon, we had reached the top of the peak. We pulled ourselves up onto the ledge of the narrow platform.
The peak of this spire of stone was a tiny, flat area. The Vrika’s curled body took up most of the space, leaving Errok and me only a foot’s-width of flat stone to stand on. The night wind howled around us, trying to drag us both back down the way we’d come. If the stars and moons were out there, I could no longer see them.
The Vrika’s light obliterated everything.
And all that light, along with its winding body, was centred around one thing.
No, two things.
Two eggs in a shallow pool of Vrika’s blood. The same Vrika’s blood that streamed down the inside of this mountain and collected in a larger pool in a cave system at the bottom for our healers to harness.
Errok and I glanced at each other. We’d both heard the tales from our father and other men. You had to crack the shell of the egg to get your mate vision.
The fact there were two eggs was the final arrow of confirmation in my chest.
The Vrika really had meant to call both of us, even though calling more than one man at the same time had been unheard of up until now.
It had two mate visions ready. One for each of us.
“I feel drawn to that one,” Errok said, gesturing with his tail towards the egg on the right.
The Vrika dipped its head slightly, and Errok took that as confirmation of his choice. My brother sucked in a quick, sharp breath, then reached for the egg with eager hands.
My own hands felt like stones had been strung from their claws. My reach was lethargic, my guts filled with dread as I took my egg. It was huge, larger than my head. And yet, despite its size and the weight upon me, it seemed to weigh nothing at all.
I glanced at my brother to see he’d already broken his egg into two halves. Whatever he saw within had stunned him into utter stillness.
My tail jerked with anger and grief and the horrible feeling that I was about to betray Priya in a terrible, unforgiveable way.
I cracked the egg.
It broke into two uneven pieces. The small top piece seemed to give me nothing, so I turned my focus to the larger piece. The inside of the egg swirled, glowing and milky like Vrika’s blood.
My breathing turned ragged. I swallowed hard, staring deeper, as a face began to take shape in the shifting whiteness.
Dark, flowing hair.
And...
Those eyes.
Eyes that had laughed at me, judged me, been angry with me, and searched for me dozens of times before.
Priya’s eyes. All big and beautiful and shining beneath her dark brows.
It’s her. It’s only ever been her.
My ribs cracked right open, my heart feeling as wide as the sky and twice as deep.
There she was. Right in front of me.
